Daniel E Wolf
Sad news, here, on the passing of Joe Coulombe, founder of Trader Joe’s. From “Two Buck Chuck” wines, to frozen gourmet entrees, to granola bars, Trader Joe’s has it all. Every place we ever lived, we’d always look forward to the day when the chain finally arrived locally.
R.I.P. Trader Joe. And thanks for everything.
Well, Everything But the Bagel, that is.
Today is a twofer Thursday.
You get both WOTD and This Day in History.
Lucky you.
Last year I wrote about “Lent” on March 8th. You can see that post, here. Every year the date is a little different, depending on where Easter falls on the calendar. Lent starts 40 days before Easter, on “Ash Wednesday.” Of course, that’s the day after “Mardi Gras,” or “Fat Tuesday.”
The good folk at Merriam Webster have summarized “A Guide to Words You’ll Hear Around Mardi Gras.” You can see all of them, here. My favorite is “fastnacht,” which is Pennsylvania German for “donut.” For the record, “Lent,” comes from the Old English for “springtime,” which also means “the days are getting longer.” Lengthen = Lent. So, longer days, shorter words. Get it? If you ask me this has very little to do – in and of itself – with fasting or abstaining from things. But then, nobody asked me. Still, one donut may be good, but a twofer? Even better.
The good folks at History.com have picked this day in 1827 for their piece on Mardi Gras, which is New Orleans’ version of “Carnival,” the name given in most of the rest of the world to the celebration right before the beginning of Lent. But they could literally have picked any day/year within a certain range of February or March since, as I said before, the date varies year to year.
Happy Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and 40-days-of-Lent, y’all.
Before you know it, Easter will be here.
Then we can eat donuts again.
Bonus cookie content:
And this bonus donut twofer from an incorrigible blog reader:
OK, I admit it. “Big Hiking’s Era of Accountability” is a straight steal from my New Yorker daily humor feed. Then again, if it’s perfect, it can’t be improved. Am I right? Enjoy.
And if you have a bit more time for a bit of a longer read, you can’t go too far wrong with David Sedaris, here. Yer welcome.
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Bonus Lost Hiker Content: 30 Miles From WHERE?
I don’t R-E-S-P-E-C-T Jamie Lee Curtis just because we almost share a birthday. Truth to tell, she is exactly 4 days older than me. I also don’t remember her for being a scream queen. I’ve never even seen “Halloween.” But I did thoroughly enjoy seeing her opposite Kevin Cline and John Cleese in “A Fish Called Wanda.” And I don’t even think much about her lineage. Though being the child of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis is pretty impressive as Hollywood pedigrees go.
No, Jamie Lee’s worthy of R-E-S-P-E-C-T
because of her S-O-B-R-I-E-T-Y.
And if you’re at all curious about that,
you can read all about it in V-A-R-I-E-T-Y,
here.
Yep. Ya just gotta R-E-S-P-E-C-T Jamie Lee ‘s rucksack.
As befits a lazy Sunday, here’s a photo from the DP archives with the following caption: “Smoothie Hancock and Happy Ryan, both of Durango, take a breather from the rigors of the road at a scenic overlook off Colorado 36 near Boulder on April 24, 1981. The pair’s future plans were uncertain — spring skiing at Arapahoe Basin and a possible side trip to Lake Powell. But for the moment, a panoramic vantage point from the roof of their bus, Bertha, was satisfying enough.”
You may think you’re cool, but you’ll never be even half as cool
as a couple of ski bums named Smoothie and Happy.
Plus a bus named Bertha.
How cool is that, eh?
More Instagram from Colorado Outdoors, here.
Bonus content:
Lake Meade? Lake Powell?
I always get those 2 mixed up.
Last word to “Hiking Tip #4.”
This story from Citylab titled “The Deer In Your Yard Are Here To Stay” is old (2017). You can read it here. Most of the pictures below are even older. But the “problem” – deer overpopulation – is as old as expanding human habitation along the margins of other animals’ habitats. And it’s not likely to get better before it gets worse.
Frankly deer overpopulation is not something a return to older ways couldn’t solve. But given how things have changed for most of us it’s unlikely we’re going back to those old ways any time soon.
In the meantime, if you live anywhere between Staten Island and the Sierras, beware of Bambi jumping in front of your vehicle. Full disclosure: I once totaled my pickup in a collision with Bambi’s mom on a remote stretch of Colorado highway doing 60. The doe and my S-10 were both losers in this confrontation. Come to think of it, since the deer in your yard are here to stay, best to slow down. Bambi and your truck will both be glad you did.
Bet you Four Bucks you’ll see more of these guys in your neighborhood this year than last….
Iowa Caucus results recently were delayed due to the meltdown of an untested app. Should we be surprised? I think not. Truth to tell, my own career as a programmer can best be summed up as a series of episodes courting disaster. “Whaaat?” I hear you say. Yep. Read on, if you dare.
WARNING: The following stories are true. But they are filled with acronyms. If you don’t like acronyms, stop right here. Go outside. Take a hike. There. You done been warned.
My first assignment after I got out of Systems Engineer (SE) training with Electronic Data Systems (EDS) was with the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) in Sacramento. They’d bought an off-the-shelf solution from another vendor to upgrade their aging mainframe student loan tracking system, called FAPS (Financial Aid Processing System). The new one didn’t work. Our mission was to implement this new code immediately in production and then try to fix it on the fly. It took us two years, but we finally did it – though not before the head of CSAC got sacked and a lot of EDSers (like me) spent a lot of sleepless nights up babysitting a batch cycle that didn’t fit inside the available 12-hour window, frequently crashing, and eliciting muttered curses from the programmer on-call .
After 5 years I moved on to the long-distance telecom business which was then in the throes of consolidation. This was just at the beginning of the cellular revolution that made long-distance land-line telephone service obsolete. The company was called MCI, short for either Microwave Cellular International, or Many Confused Individuals, depending on who you talked to. Later it became known as WorldCom. The former CEO of WorldCom, Bernie Ebbers, died recently after a long stretch in prison for his role in bogus accounting tactics that propped up WorldCom’s stock price while defrauding investors and employees (like me) who had company pensions. Thank goodness I got out of there before the stock price hit zero. But not before my entire pension became worth somewhere around the cost of a nice meal for two at McDonald’s. Ah well. Live and learn.
From there I went to work in the State of Colorado’s Child Support Enforcement (CSE) division, maintaining a system that tracked deadbeats shirking financial obligations to their offspring. The Automated CSE System (or ACSES) interfaced with the State’s Welfare system. At the time, Welfare’s system was undergoing an upgrade from an ancient legacy application. The project was called CBMS (short for Colorado Benefits Management System). Once again, a vendor’s off-the-shelf package was chosen to help contain costs. Again, the implementation went on far longer – and ended up far costlier – than anyone ever imagined at the outset. Of course, when the dust finally settled, upper management heads again rolled. And lots of programmers showed up each morning bleary-eyed after many sleepless nights on-call. So – again – we’d learned our lesson. Right?
Over the next few years I leveraged my Child Support expertise to do some contract work for other states (Illinois, Louisiana, Wyoming) before finally landing back in Denver with a teacher’s pension outfit, TIAA-CREF. Eventually, in a streamlined triumph of marketing genius, they decided to shorten the name to just TIAA, which stands for (deep breath) Teachers Income Annuity Association. But they were still running big-iron mainframe legacy systems by the time I left 7 years later. There weren’t any huge disasters, at least none I can still recall. But I do know for a fact they are still hiring DBAs to manage databases that are now many decades old. So how successful at modernization can they really be here at the dawn of the 21st century? Oh, no, wait. We’re already 20 years into the new century. My how time flies when you’re having fun.
Back on the road again for me: With the Feds for a time at Interior, working on their Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS). Thence to Topeka, armpit of middle America, for more State Child Support fun. Then, returning full circle to Sacramento for another go-round on a teachers’ pension app, this one called CalSTRS (don’t even ask). Finally I landed somewhere completely different: Universal Music Group in L.A. UMG is my first foray into the music business. But it’s certainly not my first experience courting disaster – not by a long shot. Hence, the real reason for this post.
There’s a recent article in Rolling Stone, and you can read it here. It’s about the meltdown at DirectShot Distribution (DSD) that has disrupted physical supply chain operations at each of the Big Three record labels – Sony, Warner, and UMG, where I now work. Conspiracy theories aside, the same stories of attempted technological modernization, short-sighted cost-cutting, and management turmoil are in process of playing out yet again. Will we ever learn? For the answer to that question and more, stay tuned for details on your late local news @ 11….
But in the meantime, please remember to test your code.
BEFORE it gets to production.
Pretty please? With sugar on top?
Trust me: You’ll be glad you did.
New Yorker cartoonists are on a roll this week.
It took me a while. But then… well, you know.
Yep, this is definitely me this week:
You too?
C’mon, be honest!
Today is Presidents’ Day, Monday, February 17th – a federal and state holiday in most (but not all) states. It’s the birthday of neither Washington (Feb. 22nd) nor Lincoln (Feb. 12th), though it substitutes for both. Well, except in some southern states where Lincoln is purposefully ignored and that good old slave-owner Thomas Jefferson (who was actually born in April) is included instead. Go figure.
The good folks at Merriam Webster have summarized “8 Words and Phrases From U.S. Presidents.” You can read all about it here. Or, see below for my favorite Presidents’ WOTD.
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Lunatic fringe is defined as the members of a group espousing extreme, eccentric, or fanatical views. Theodore Roosevelt was among the first to have used the term in 1913 shortly after his failed third-party run on the Bull Moose ticket. While we often see the term directed toward outlandish political movements, Roosevelt’s subject was the art world. Writing about an international modern art exhibition in New York, Roosevelt was unimpressed with some of the more avant-garde works on display.
It’s worth noting that while Roosevelt may have popularized this use of the term, he did not invent it. In the late 19th century, lunatic fringe was a name for a women’s haircut featuring bangs. This use of lunatic fringe seems not to have lasted much past the 19th century. But boy, they did not much care for bangs back then.
Bloviate means “to speak or write verbosely or windily.” While that might not sound like the kind of thing a president would boast about, it happened to be a favorite word of Warren G. Harding. He used it to mean “to spend time idly.” Though he didn’t coin “bloviate,” the Ohio native likely picked it up during his youth. But because he was a bit of a long-winded speaker himself, it developed a new connotation after it was picked up by commentators such as H. L. Mencken.
Despite its colloquial nature, the adjective “iffy” was a go-to word for Franklin D. Roosevelt who is among the first to be quoted using it. Roosevelt used the versatile “iffy” to describe the hypothetical situations occasionally posed by journalists (i.e. those beginning with if) which he often dismissed as irrelevant.
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The original sense of sugarcoat comes from the practice of frosting bitter pills in sugar to make them easier to swallow. Abraham Lincoln caught notice when he used the verb in its figurative sense – “to make superficially attractive or palatable” – in an 1861 message to Congress about the folly of Secession.
When used to mean “responsibility,” the noun buck turns up in the phrases like the buck stops here. This was notably emblazoned on a paperweight situated prominently on the desk of Harry S. Truman. The phrase “pass the buck” originates from poker, with buck short for buckhorn knife. Such a knife – with a handle made from a buck’s horn – was used as a marker designating which player’s turn it was to deal. If you didn’t want the responsibility of dealing, you “passed the buck” to the next guy.
When it comes to WOTD, you can’t ignore Nixon’s Veep, Spiro T. Agnew. He never made it to the Oval Office because he was forced out for felony tax evasion a year before Nixon’s run came to its untimely end with Watergate. But for sheer moxie, it’s hard to surpass Agnew’s sneering dismissal of the press corps as “nattering nabobs of negativity.” I’m not gonna sugarcoat it: He took FDR’s disdain for the MSM to a whole new level.
